Phil Smith's Mis-Guided Wander in Llandudno
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Try out Phil's mythogeographical approach for yourself
Phil Smith, known for creating performance walks from Kensington
Gardens to rocky North Devon promontories, from long Cornish
beaches to Ipswich’s suburbia via Sussex re-wilding sites,
created this instant mis-guided tour of a few streets in
Llandudno, looking at the secret history of apparently innocent
signage, the mysterious journeys of materials and the way that
myths are waiting to give meaning to even the most ordinary of
places.
On 22nd November, 2017, Phil took 15 of us on this mis-guided
tour, as the closing event for
http://lindseycolbourne.com/
http://www.mapllandudno.org/' residency at
http://cultureactionllandudno.com/.
Now you can try out this way of experiencing a place.... The
wander starts at Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Lady Augusta
Mostyn's aspired-for new centre of town, and ends at Y
Tabernacl, at the heart of the old town. Time takes some strange
twists and turns along the way. You will see some photos of us
on the same wander, now added to the sediment of semi-forgotten
history of Llandudno.
Phil Smith is a performance-maker, writer and ambulatory
researcher, specialising in creating performances related to
walking, site-specificity, and counter-tourism. He is a core
member of site-based arts collective Wrights & Sites,
presently working on a new publication: ‘The Architect-Walker’.
He is also developing a ‘common dance for threatened
subjectivities’ with choreographer Melanie Kloetzel (Calgary
University) and is working as a Site Artist for Tracing the
Pathway’s ‘Groundwork’ project in Milton Keynes.Phil’s
publications include ‘Anywhere’ (2017), ‘On Walking’ and
‘Enchanted Things’ (2014), ‘Counter-Tourism: The Handbook’
(2012) and ‘Mythogeography’ (2010). He is an Associate Professor
(Reader) at Plymouth University.
More about Phil:
http://www.triarchypress.net/smithereens.html
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1
Oriel Mostyn Gallery
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Walk in silence between the stopping points. The walk is partly
exemplary, in that some of the places are prompts to different
ways to walk and experience.
2
The Millennium Sculpture
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The Millennium Sculpture71m / 233ft ~ Approximately a minute
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The Millennium Sculpture: one of the lower layers depicts the
Carboniferous-era seas from which the area’s limestone comes;
billions and billions of dead bodies of small sea creatures fallen
to the bottom of the ocean and eventually compressed into rock.
At least two of the creatures on the Sculpture seems to be
creatures with lophophores; feeding organs that are tentacle-like
with tiny tentacles on their surface, which all react and engage
with the currents of the water, and create their own, to gather
food (or information).
So, the trick here is to walk like a lophophore, engaging and
interacting with the currents around you – in the winds, in the
movement of people and birds, and in the slow movement of grasses
and the roll of litter in the gutter.
3
James Payne storehouses on John Street
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James Payne storehouses on John Street113m / 371ft ~ Approximately a minute
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While much of the route of this walk might feel like the
‘backstage’ of a performance, or behind a film set, in John Street
the feeling is much more of being in a film set or outside TV film
location.
It’s partly the consistent blue colour on all the buildings, their
sealed and enigmatic quality, and the fading and erosion that they
have all been subject to. They might be the backstreet setting for
a 70s cop show or even an early episode of Dr Who.
The idea here is to look out for spaces that remind you of a film,
and to be in that film for a while, to walk in its imaginary space
as you simultaneously walk in the material one.
4
Still on John Street, where it turns sharp right towards
Charlton Street
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Still on John Street, where it turns sharp right towards
Charlton Street91m / 299ft ~ Approximately a minute
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There is a display around the rear entrance to the James Payne
shop, itemising its areas of speciality or maybe trade names:
Quantum, Underground, Soil and Waste, and so on.
Although I have not done so here, you could use a text like this
as the structure for your walk, taking these as the titles for
different layers or regions that you walk through, or looking for
the presence of these different themes and maybe how they overlay
or emerge one from under another.
5
Charlton Street Steps
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Charlton Street Steps66m / 217ft ~ Approximately a minute
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What presumably were once steps up to two front doors have been
sealed up so that the startling white steps lead to a wall with
windows.
There is a sense of possibilities cut off, and yet continuing
ideally, unreally.
6
Right on the corner of Charlton Street and Trinity
Square, on the wall around the church grounds
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Right on the corner of Charlton Street and Trinity
Square, on the wall around the church grounds43m / 141ft ~ Approximately a few seconds
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A bench mark cut into the stone, a single horizontal line, under
which three rays or lines stream out.
We will return to this symbol later in the walk.
7
Inside Holy Trinity Church
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Inside Holy Trinity Church194m / 636ft ~ Approximately 2 minutes
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Around to the left as you enter, is the wood carving of The Angel
made by Handel Edwards in the 1970s. The angel consists of human,
bird and vegetable elements. Into her body are carved scenes from
the gospels.
The idea here is you can walk with a body that carries certain
scenes or events in it; so, most literally, this might be a scar
which reminds you of the events of the actual injury or of more
upbeat things that the scar evokes for you.
Your fingers might carry the resonance of a wall you built or the
bread you bake, your hair might carry a hurricane....
8
Clonmel Street
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Arrive via foot from Clonmel Street92m / 302ft ~ Approximately a minute
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Above the doorway of the now redundant Alexandra Hotel a clutter
of national flags are flapping, beginning to wear down to threads.
They could be re-seen as ‘prayer flags’, releasing prayers – or
other kinds of thoughts, if you prefer – as they disintegrate into
the winds.
9
Somerset Street, loading area for M&S
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Somerset Street, loading area for M&S82m / 269ft ~ Approximately a minute
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The brick work here mimics a gothic arch, as mostly found in
church architecture.
This is (at least) a double inauthenticity; when the gothic arches
of Holy Trinity were raised they were already at least a
neo-Gothic, if not a neo-neo-Gothic inauthenticity, but these
brick arches (that aren’t arches) are multiple-inauthenticities.
10
Somerset St, the lorry stopping place for M&S
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Somerset St, the lorry stopping place for M&S68m / 223ft ~ Approximately a minute
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There are signs on the doors and wall here that can be
mis-interpreted.
So the DANGER OF DEATH sign looks like a warning to those
attempting to levitate that they will be struck down by a divine
lightning flash of ire, while the NO PARKING ANYTIME suggests an
ideal temporality, just as the idea of ANYWHERE might suggest a
zone in which all bets are off, borders do not apply and
possibilities are multiplied.
These are just a couple of the many signs along this route which
are open to such poetic mis-interpretation.
11
Somerset Street, left hand side
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Somerset Street, left hand side68m / 223ft ~ Approximately a minute
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There is a house in which all the windows have been sealed up and
the whole has been pebble-dashed.
It might be a face without eyes and mouth.
Such grave and dread deletions, rendering a place down to an
almost abstract shape, are somehow both appalling and attractive.
These places can draw your feelings onto uncertain territory,
reacting ambiguously to the emotional non-person’s land between
negation and perfection.
12
At the corner of Somerset Street and St George’s
Place
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At the corner of Somerset Street and St George’s
Place31m / 102ft ~ Approximately a few seconds
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We admired the rainbow bowed over the sea.
But it won’t be there for everyone, every time.
13
Ty Isa Road, on the left hand side
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Ty Isa Road, on the left hand side79m / 259ft ~ Approximately a minute
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There is a small black door with the word WILDWOOD attached on a
temporary sign. This can work as an imaginary portal (indeed
across a small car park on the other side of the road you may find
the word PORTAL).
Stand outside the black door and imagine knocking on it, that it
opens, and you make your way inside, having to push aside the
boughs of trees and facefulls of leaves. That there really is a
wild wood behind the black door.
Look out for other such portals as you go, and remember: every
once in a while, there really is a wild wood behind a black door.
14
Ty Isa Road, further along, still on the left hand
side
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Ty Isa Road, further along, still on the left hand
side30m / 98ft ~ Approximately a few seconds
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On the wall that is the back of a sweet shop, someone has painted
in white letters DISKOS.
I had brought along a packet of ‘flying saucer’ sweets, which may
have sometimes been called ‘diskos’. They also have a hint of the
ritualistic, shaped a little like communion wafers.
Their taste is sublimely artificial; evoking some kind of alien
and unnatural fabrication.
15
Back South Parade, on the right at the near corner of the
concrete building just before the lane turns to the
right
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Back South Parade, on the right at the near corner of the
concrete building just before the lane turns to the
right71m / 233ft ~ Approximately a minute
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A concrete post with the letters GPO and three rays or lines in
the concrete, the same as those beneath the horizontal line on the
benchmark at the corner of Charlton and Trinity.
This is one of the arcane and esoteric marks of the street; the
three spreading lines, a ‘broad arrow’ are derived from the coat
of arms of the Sidney family, and were appropriated by the British
State as their logo.
So, if in old cartoons you saw prisoners in clothes covered in
arrows, they were there because the prison clothes were the
property of the state.
The one at the corner of Charlton and Trinity indicates that the
benchmark (the horizontal line which marks a sea level based on a
high tide mark on the wall of Newlyn’s harbour) was put there by
the Ordnance Survey, a state organisation.
The ‘broad arrow’ is very similar to the symbol for ‘awen’; Welsh
for ‘inspiration’, this can be interpreted as the very first
breath of the universe.
So, these marks can be used as a token; touch them in passing and
you are transported briefly to a moment just before the Big Bang.
16
Garage
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Arrive via foot from Garage28m / 92ft ~ Approximately a few seconds
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Still on Back Street Parade, just around the right hand turn: one
of the green doors to the garages on your right is usually open,
with a couple of chairs in place; presumably a smokers’ retreat
for hotel employees, it looks like a small auditorium.
The idea is here is to pick up on autobiographical resonances even
in spaces you have never visited before:
This garage and its mini-auditorium reminded me of the first ever
performance that I played a part in creating; I had just turned 10
when I heard the news of the Aberfan disaster, so the
neighbourhood children and I put together a show (I’ve no memory
of what it consisted) and charged our parents to come and see us
perform it in our garage, then sent the takings to the disaster
fund.
17
Across the prom opposite the end of Trevor Street to the
lifeboat ramp
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Across the prom opposite the end of Trevor Street to the
lifeboat ramp98m / 322ft ~ Approximately a minute
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If you look far to the right you can see around the bay to the
community at Penrhyn-side. In 1890 Violet Frith was born there;
her father ran the Craigside Hydrotherapeutic Establishment.
Much later Violet changed her name to Dion Fortune, based on the
family motto ‘Deo, non Fortuna’ (God, not Chance), and under that
name is known as one of the leading proponents of occult magic,
even organising a magical defence of Britain during the Second
World War.
From the age of four, Violet had repeated dreams of the drowned
land of Atlantis, which she attributed to past life experience,
but may have been informed by tales of sunken lands off the coast
here, like that of the lost palace just beyond the Great Orme at
Llys Helig or, further south and west, the inundated kingdom of
Cantre’r Gwaelod.
You might try your own magic for a moment and see if you can call
one of the lost domains to rise up from the depths.... who
knows....
18
The obelisk war memorial at the end of Glodaeth
Street
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The obelisk war memorial at the end of Glodaeth
Street153m / 502ft ~ Approximately 2 minutes
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This can be seen all the way down to Gloddaeth Avenue and the home
of Charles Pepper, the designer of the insignia of the RAF.
The bird on the insignia is usually assumed to be an eagle, but in
fact Pepper had avoided this bird as at the time (1918) its
representation was used as an emblem of the German military.
The trick here is to look very carefully at those things we assume
we know best, very often we see what we assume is there and do not
see what actually is – so, for example, how many people assume
that it is a mermaid on the Starbucks cup, when in fact it is a
twin-tailed serpent?
19
Railings at the seaward side of the junction of North
Parade and the roundabout with Church Walk
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Railings at the seaward side of the junction of North
Parade and the roundabout with Church Walk140m / 459ft ~ Approximately 2 minutes
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These overlook a large void where once stood the Llandudno Pier
Pavilion Theatre, burned down in 1994. Some elegant wrought iron
pillars remain.
It was here in 1948 that Margaret Thatcher attended the
Conservative Party annual conference (and joined the Vermin Club,
eventually rising to the office of Chief Rat [true!]) and decided
to pursue a career in politics.
Margaret Thatcher was unusual in her devotion to implementing
political ideas, not just solutions or policies, and she was
deeply informed in her ideas (a conflation of which would come to
be called neo-liberalism) by libertarian social philosophers like
Friedrich Hayek and monetarist free-market economists like Milton
Friedman.
Monuments and memorials are mostly built to commemorate events or
individuals, but the void of the Pavilion Theatre might serve as a
suitable monument to neo-liberal ideas (so long the dominant
commonsense of much of the world) as it is on the wane, not
necessarily to be replaced by anything better, but probably by a
wave of authoritarianism.
As you go look out for other accidental monuments to dying ideas.
20
Junction of Church Walks and Vardre Lane
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Junction of Church Walks and Vardre Lane123m / 404ft ~ Approximately a minute
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There is a certain ghostly doubleness here.
To acknowledge it you could look back along Church Walks to where
you were just standing by the railing looking into the void.
Observe your five minute ghost there, the person you were those
few minutes ago, and consider how you have changed since then.
Then look at the small archways either side of the entrance to
Vardre Lane and imagine the ghost of the top of the arch that
would once have bridged the two.
Another kind of doubleness occurred right on Church Walks; a man
staying recently at one of the local hotels returned to find that
contractors had painted a double yellow line up to one end of his
car and then continued at the other end. This was written up in
the press as one of those ‘bureaucracy-gone-crazy’ or
‘council-madness’ stories.
And when you read it that’s how it looks at first; then, you
think, no, there are two stories here – firstly, a perfectly
sensible piece of work by the council contractors, they did what
they could then returned and finished the job later, and the media
report that re-cast it into something quite else.
21
Vadre Lane
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Arrive via foot from Vadre Lane45m / 148ft ~ Approximately a few seconds
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A scene of more doubleness.
Florence House, now a residential dwelling was once a police
station.
On this lane in 2015 police and medical services “swooped” on a
man who was suspected of carrying the Ebola virus. The man,
described as a regular traveller to West Africa, was later found
to be free of the virus. While the sealing off of the road, given
the dangers of Ebola, is understandable, the use by media outlets
of the term “swooped” turns this from a story of medical
assistance – coming to the aid of someone in need – into one of
detention, blame and suspicion.
A little further down the road, on the left you can see through to
the metal steps of the fire escape for the Lauriston Court Hotel;
it was down these steps that, illegally but not remarkably, a man
and woman, pursuing a clandestine affair, absconded from a hotel
without paying their £65 bill. What was remarkable was that the
man (who made the booking) was brought to justice as a result of a
finger print found on a fire door FOUR YEARS later.
Two of the stories of this lane; one is a small story that is
written up very big, the other is a small story that may be a
result of something much bigger.
22
Beneath your feet
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Beneath your feet78m / 256ft ~ Approximately a minute
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Unlike the other lanes on this walk, Varde Lane has a cobbled
channel running down its centre.
Perhaps because this was where the horses for holidaymakers’
coaches would have stood in numbers a century and more ago.
Look for these anomalies, they often mean something; the itches
and scratches that reveal the evolving anatomy of the town.
23
Mostyn Street: Freemason's Hall
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Mostyn Street: Freemason's Hall96m / 315ft ~ Approximately a minute
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On the left above the entrance to the Freemasons’ Hall is a
recently cleaned ornamental carving including some familiar
Masonic imagery; square, compasses, all seeing eye, and then a
pair of birds on clusters of acorns and giant fronds of fern that
at first look like the curled tentacles of some great octopus
thing. Indeed, like Handel Edwards’s angel this might be a
composite one-eyed squid-bracken-tool-thing....
.... Complete your walk to Culture Action Llandudno at the
Tabernacle by drawing on the ideas, organs, objects and animals of
your wander in order to walk as such a hybrid beast, while noting
as you go the gargantuan rock of the Great Orme hovering above the
town like a giant stone and steely raindrop.
24
Y Tabernacl
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Arrive via foot from Y Tabernacl58m / 190ft ~ Approximately a few seconds
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Pay homage to Lewis Valentine, his Welsh language activism and
pacifism, and his blowing up a bomb factory before going inside.
More organs here.
While we were here, on 22nd November 2017, Phil told us of his
work over the last 20 years as a walking artist and researcher:
his transformation from playwright to a wanderer researching the
narratives and dynamics of place and space, making performances
about walking. He talked of how the idea of ‘mythogeography’
slowly emerged out of site-specific theatre to become a means to
searching for the wonderful in the ordinary, a mental and physical
discipline with relevance to dance, pilgrimage and geography.
Lindsey shared the results of her residency, including more walks
to do:
https://mapllandudno.org/
We had soup, and chatted about the highlights of the walk for us,
how we might go on to use what we'd experienced in the
future...
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